“Want to turn up the heater, Denny?” Mom asked brightly.
“Would you, Mom?”
I thought of Leigh, who was due back tomorrow. Leigh with her lovely face (enhanced by those slanting, almost cruel cheekbones), her young and sweetly luscious figure that had not yet been marred by the forces of time or gravity; like that long-ago Plymouth that had rolled out of Detroit on a carrier in 1957, she was, in a sense, still under warranty. Then I thought of LeBay, who was dead and yet undead, and I thought of his lust (but was it lust? or just a need to spoil things?). I thought of Arnie saying with calm assurance that they were going to be married. And then, with a helpless clarity, I saw their wedding night. I saw her looking up into the darkness of some motel room and seeing a rotting grinning corpse poised over her. I heard her screams as Christine, a Christine still festooned with crepe streamers and soaped-on JUST MARRIED signs, waited faithfully outside the closed and locked door. Christine—or the terrible female force that animated her—would know Leigh wouldn’t last long… and she, Christine, would be around when Leigh was gone.
I closed my eyes to block the images out, but that only intensified them.
It had begun with Leigh wanting Arnie and had progressed logically enough to Arnie wanting her back. But it hadn’t stopped there, had it? Because now LeBay had Arnie… and he wanted Leigh.
But he wasn’t going to have her. Not if I could help it. That night I called George LeBay.
“Yes, Mr Guilder,” he said, He sounded older, tireder. “I remember you very well. I talked your ear off in front of my unit in what I believe may have been the most depressing motel in the universe. What can I do for you?” He sounded as though he hoped I wouldn’t require too much.
I hesitated. Did I tell him that his brother had come back from the dead? That not even the grave had been able to end his hate of the shitters? Did I tell him he had possessed my friend, had picked him out as unerringly as Arnie had picked out Christine? Did we talk about mortality, and time, and rancid love?
“Mr Guilder? Are you there?”
“I’ve got a problem, Mr LeBay. And I don’t know exactly how to tell you about it. It concerns your brother.”
Something new came into his voice then, something tight and controlled. “I don’t know what sort of a problem you could have that would concern him. Rollie’s dead.”
“That’s just it.” Now I was unable to control my own voice. It trembled up to a higher octave and then drifted back down again. “I don’t think he is.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice was taut, accusing… and fearful. “If this is your idea of a joke, I assure you it’s in the poorest possible taste.”
“No joke. Just let me tell you some of the stuff that’s happened since your brother died.”
“Mr Guilder, I have several sets of papers to correct, and a novel I want to finish, and I really don’t have time to indulge in—”
“Please,” I said. “Please, Mr LeBay, please help me, and help my friend.”
There was a long, long pause, and then LeBay sighed. “Tell your tale,” he said, and then, after a brief pause, he added, “Goddam you.”
I passed the story along to him by way of modern long-distance cable; I could imagine my voice going through computerized switching stations full of miniaturized circuits, under snow-blanketed wheatfields, and finally into the ear of this man.
I told him about Arnie’s trouble with Repperton, Buddy’s expulsion and revenge; I told him about the death of Moochie Welch; what had happened at Squantic Hills; what had happened during the Christmas Eve storm. I told him about windscreen cracks that seemed to run backward and a milometer that did for sure. I told him about the radio that seemed to receive only WDIL, the oldies station, no matter where you set it—that brought a soft grunt of surprise from George LeBay. I told him about the handwriting on my casts, and how the one Arnie had done on Thanksgiving night matched his brother’s signature on Christine’s original registration form. I told him about Arnie’s constant use of the word “shitters”. The way he had started combing his hair like Fabian, or one of those other fifties greaseballs. I told him everything, in fact, except what had happened to me on my ride home early on New Year’s morning. I had intended to, but I simply could not do it. I never let that out of myself until I wrote all of this down four years later.
When I finished, there was a silence on the line.
“Mr LeBay? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he said finally. “Mr Guilder—Dennis—I don’t intend to offend you, but you must realize that what you are suggesting goes far beyond any possible psychic phenomena and extends into.” He trailed off.
“Madness?”
“That isn’t the word I would have used. From what you say, you were involved in a terrible football accident. You were in the hospital for two months, and in great pain for some of that time. Now isn’t it possible that your imagination—”
“Mr LeBay,” I said “did your brother ever have a saying about the little tramp?”
“What?”
“The little tramp. Like when you throw a ball of paper at the wastebasket and hit it, you say “Two points.” Only instead of that, “Watch me put it up the little tramp’s ass.” Did your brother ever say that?”
“How did you know that?” And then, without giving me time to answer: “He used the phrase on one of the occasions when you met him, didn’t he?”
“No.
“Mr Guilder, you’re a liar.”
I said nothing. I was shaking, weak-kneed. No adult had ever said that to me in my whole life.
“Dennis, I’m sorry. But my brother is dead. He was an unpleasant, possibly even an evil human being, but he is dead and all of these morbid fancies and fantasies “Who was the little tramp?” I managed.
Silence.
“Was it Charlie Chaplin?”
I didn’t think he was going to reply at all. Then, at last, heavily, he said, “Only at second hand. He meant Hitler. There was a passing resemblance between Hitler and Chaplin’s little tramp. Chaplin made a movie called The Great Dictator. You’ve probably never even seen it. It was a common enough name for him during the war years, at any rate. You would be much too young to remember. But it means nothing.”
It was my turn to remain silent.
“It means nothing!” he shouted. “Nothing! It’s vapours and suggestions, nothing more! You must see this!”
“There are seven people dead over here in western Pennsylvania,” I said. “That’s not just vapours. There are the signatures on my casts. They’re not vapours, either. I saved them, Mr LeBay. Let me send them to you. Look at them and tell me if one of them isn’t your brother’s handwriting.”
“It could be a knowing or unknowing forgery.”
“If you believe that, get a handwriting expert. I’ll pay for it.”
“You could do that yourself.”
“Mr LeBay,” I said, “I don’t need any more convincing.”
“But what do you want from me? To share your fantasy? I won’t do that. My brother is dead. His car is just a car.” He was lying. I felt it. Even through the telephone I felt it.
“I want you to explain something you said to me that night we talked.”
“What would that be?” He sounded wary.
I licked my lips. “You said he was obsessed and angry, but he wasn’t a monster. At least, you said, you didn’t, think he was. Then it seemed like you changed the subject completely… but the more I think about it, the more I think you didn’t change the subject at all. The next thing you said was that he never put a mark on either of them.”
“Dennis, really. I—”
“Look, if you were going to say something, for Christ’s sake, say it now!” I cried. My voice cracked. I wiped my forehead, and my hand came away slimy with sweat. “This is no easier for me than it is for you, Arnie’s fixated on this girl, her name is Leigh Cabot, only I don’t think it’s Arnie who’s fixated on her at all, I think it’s your brother, your dead brother, now talk to me, please!”